


I Want To Be

by Karinakamichi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anxiety, Cutting, Depression, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Low Self-Esteem, Protective Hatake Kakashi, Rival Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, motherly Tsunade, protective ino yamanaka, protective tsunade senju
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27029143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karinakamichi/pseuds/Karinakamichi
Summary: Sakura hated it. She hated that no matter how many times Tsunade, Kakashi and others told her she'd made remarkable progress, the voice in the back of her head always continued to nag at her, telling her it wasn't good enough. And then she remembered Ino who had always been better than her in every possible way. Slow InoSaku. Motherly Tsunade. Self-Harm/Cutting/Eating Disorders.
Relationships: Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Shizune, Haruno Sakura & Tsunade, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura/Yamanaka Ino
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	1. Prologue

_**Prequel:** _

_**...** _

Sakura hated it.

She hated that no matter how many times Tsunade, Kakashi and others told her she'd made remarkable progress, the voice in the back of her head always continued to nag at her, telling her it wasn't good enough, that it would _never_ be good enough, because Naruto and Sasuke were on an entirely different level than her, that all her efforts were meaningless because nothing would change that.

It reminded her that she always would be behind everybody else, no matter how hard she worked.

_Useless._

_Useless._

_Useless._

The voice repeated like a mantra.

And then she would remember Ino. She would remember how confident, beautiful, self-assertive and smart she was, how Ino was everything Sakura herself lacked. She thought about how she had tried so hard to be like her in too many ways to count and the voice still ate away at her until she drew blood to pull herself away from her thoughts, to relieve herself from the guilt and self-doubts.

As she dug the blade of a kunai into her thighs, the sting caused a familiar sense of euphoria to hit her like bricks and she became more relaxed, watching blood flow out of the wound. It actually felt pretty good unironically, to be in control of her own pain for once.

Cutting wasn't a healthy coping mechanism, and Tsunade wouldn't approve of it in the slightest to find out about this, nor would Kakashi, Ino, or any others, but Sakura was a medic. She knew fully well what she was getting herself into and quite frankly she didn't care. This was the only thing she had to help her. She needed this. Whether they approved of it or not was none of her concern.

Feeling a little dizzy, she finally decided to stop, reaching up to let her wounds glow green. For the past few months, she'd made it a habit to stop the bleeding, but not the scarring.

Fortunately, her black trousers would be more than enough to cover the wounds when she was around Tsunade and others.

…

_**A/N: So this story will be mainly revolved around InoSaku and Tsunade's motherly bond with Sakura. It takes place primarily in the 3 year time skip so yah. Naruto and Sasuke aren't around. I will bring in Shizune sometimes too tho** _


	2. Chapter 1

**_A/N: I didn't expect this to get much attention, but thanks for the kudos everybody hehe._ **

**_Also, again, this is strictly motherly Tsunade, so if anybody gets any weird idea, that's on them, not me. This will become Ino x Sakura though, so do be ready for that haha._ **

_**Lastly, there's not a lot of dialogue in this chapter but I will have more next chapter I promise... Most of this chapter is just me projecting, so I hope you'll forgive me.** _

_..._

From the beginning, training with Tsunade had been increasingly intense and it always left Sakura with countless bruises and scrapes all over her body. She'd surprisingly reached the point of being able to counter some of her attacks and she no longer closed her eyes when they were sparring, but she was no where near to the level she wanted to be.

Her master was just so amazing, not only in beauty, but her combat skills were phenomenal and she was _so strong_. Hell, within the first month of apprenticing under her, the woman had quickly become yet another person Sakura wanted to catch up to and be like.

And over the past few months, she found herself obsessing more and more over the differences between them. Every time she failed to land a blow or failed to defend herself against Tsunade's attacks, she cursed herself more and more for not being better.

She kept trying to remind herself that both Sasuke and Naruto were probably enduring similar training under Orochimaru and Jiraiya, and telling herself that Tsunade was a _legendary_ shinobi so reaching her level would be no easy feat, but it never really made her feel that much better about it.

"Sakura, you need to be faster. You can't keep giving me an opening to attack you. If this was a real battle, you'd already be dead by now." Tsunade never once hesitated to express any issues she had with Sakura, so it was no surprise when she finally scolded her after several hours of sparring.

While it was true that Sakura's movements certainly weren't the worst compared to what they used to be. But she'd become better since then, so considering how she usually was, she wasn't doing well at all, and it actually was more shocking Tsunade hadn't mentioned anything _sooner_.

Sakura could only hope the woman didn't suspect anything. She needed the scars and she needed to cut to feel better, but losing that much blood in one go right before going out to train undeniably had put her at a disadvantage and made her feel sick. Or maybe it was the fact that her stomach was trying to once again get her to eat and put on pounds so it would only make her movements even worse? Either way, something was wrong, and she felt like she was going to pass out.

Due to Tsunade being Hokage, she wasn't able to train her every day, but, no matter the circumstances, she always did her best to adjust her schedule and find time for Sakura, who couldn't possibly be more grateful.

Leave it to _her_ to become a burden like this. She mentally cursed herself as stars formed in her vision and she became light-headed.

"I know... I'm just…" Sakura struggled to catch her breath, unable to finish her sentence.

"Just _what_?" Tsunade asked, a bit irritably, before noticing that Sakura almost seemed to be nodding off. She became a bit worried, sighing. "...Sakura, if you want to take a break or stop for the day, then just tell me. We _have_ been at this for a while."

At hearing that Sakura cursed, telling herself to get a grip. "No, I'm fine. Sorry, Shisshou… It won't happen again." Sakura said, forcing herself to get back up with a determined look in her eyes as she faced her. _I can't stop now. I have to get stronger._

And if Tsunade could keep this up, then _she_ had to as well or it would all be meaningless.

Despite Tsunade's concern, she decided to let Sakura continue. After all, war stopped for nobody. Sakura may be a child, but she was also a Kunoichi and Tsunade knew she had to have faith in her.

…

Although Tsunade was tough on her when it came to their training, she was also really kind to her. She always made sure to heal Sakura's wounds after they were done (even though Sakura already knew how to heal herself at this point) and Sakura really enjoyed being around her.

"Are your legs hurt as well? I couldn't help but notice you were defensive in your movements earlier." Tsunde asked, reaching up to check her thighs for injuries. In truth, she had noticed it a lot lately, but today it was especially obvious, and Sakura immediately confirmed her suspicions by pulling away and brushing her off.

"No, it's nothing, don't worry about it. I'm just kind of sensitive there is all…" Sakura gave a small nervous smile before getting up, deciding it was probably better she left. She didn't want to take anymore of Tsunade's time up than she already had. "Anyway, I should probably get going now... Thank you so much for training with me today, Shisshou…"

She was clearly hiding something that wasn't related to their sparring matches, and Tsunade felt inclined to get to the bottom of it, since Sakura logically should have healed it by now, but knew that pressing the subject wouldn't do any good. Besides, there was another concern that had been weighing on her mind anyway.

"Sakura," Tsunade called out her name before she was able to leave. "before you do that, why don't you and I go somewhere to eat?"

"Huh? Wait, you mean _now_? No way, I couldn't possibly impose on you like that, I-" Sakura started to protest, but Tsunade cut her off with a grin.

"Don't be so uptight. I'll even invite Shizune." Tsunade said, wrapping an arm over her shoulder. "We can call it a girls night out, just the three of us. What do you say?"

She would have invited Ino as well, because of how close she was to Sakura, but last she heard, she had been caught up with some things at the Flower shop so she hadn't had any time to come out today.

At seeing Tsunade's hopeful face, the idea of spending time with her suddenly didn't seem so bad and Sakura was completely unable to turn her down. What could it hurt?

…

_**A/N: Well I didn't expect this to get much attention, but I'm glad y'all liked it so far. As for WHY Sakura chose not to stop her wounds from scarring or completely heal her wounds, it's a matter of the fact that to self-harmers, the scars left behind… It's very personal. I can't even fully explain it myself, but I wanted there to be a proof of my struggle, a sort of validation for my feelings. The physical pain and scars put logic to the illogical feelings that I was dealing with, matched the inside to the outside I guess? I though it helped me having those scars somehow? I don't know why because it's very complicated.** _

_**And I'm hoping to bring Ino in in the next few chapters, because she's gonna play a huge role in this story, just as Tsunade is.** _

_**I just really like exploring Motherly!Tsunade though, because there's not enough of it, and I haven't seen a single fanfiction that had Sakura dealing with self-harm that Tsunade or really even Ino was remotely even involved that much and it low key makes me mad because I don't think there's enough exploration for Mom!Tsunade or InoSaku with this topic matter, so I wanted to write something for it oof. Besides it's whumptober, so why not? I haven't had much experience writing for Tsunade or least of all Ino, so I'm really hoping that I'll have them as close as possible to in character, ya know? The stuff with Tsunade is me projecting my own desires for a close maternal figure. Probably will also bring in Kakashi later as well. No doubt he'll be worried.** _


End file.
